It goes without saying that “politics happen” – but they should not happen on what appears to be the taxpayer dime on lampposts along Market Street in San Francisco. The Life Legal Defense Foundation has challenged the city of San Francisco with a blatant violation of its own city code. This month, inflammatory political statements promoting a Ms. Magazine initiated pro-abortion campaign now waft over foot and auto traffic, as this municipal local marketing tool is abused, allowing feminist rhetoric to take the place intended for promotion of farmers’ markets and neighborhood festivals.

The city regularly authorizes the display of banners to promote “city-sponsored,” “city-funded,” or “city-wide” events or “series of related events of interest to a significant portion of the residents of San Francisco and/or tourists.” San Francisco does allow some non-event banners to be posted on city-owned utility poles, but they are restricted to “city convention facility banners” and “city neighborhood banners.” A typical non-event banner would be the non-controversial San Francisco State University banners urging San Franciscans to “Support Public Higher Education: The Future Depends On It”

The offending banners, issued by the Trust Women Silver Ribbon Campaign bear blatantly political statements including “U.S. Out of My Uterus,” “Reproductive Rights are Human Rights” and “San Francisco is Pro-Choice,” slogans which are clearly designed to provoke the ire of those who do not share the printed sentiments. The authors of the silver ribbon month website reference a 2011 pro-abortion Ms. Magazine blog as the impetus behind the project, which is actually an event only in the virtual sense.

“The city minions who ‘approved’ these illegal banners might have thought that the public would ignore the challenge, but they are in error.” Said Dana Cody, Executive Director, Life Legal Defense Foundation. “We also believe this puts a stick in the eye of pro-life advocates who will be marching down Market Street on January 21 for the annual March for Life.”

A copy of the letter from the Life Legal Defense Foundation attorneys to San Francisco officials is available here.

“Our Bodies Ourselves is one of 42 partners in the Trust Women/Silver Ribbon campaign, a project to increase the visibility of pro-choice messages.

This week, the campaign has placed banners along Market Street in San Francisco to “spark conversations and to help build momentum and solidarity among supporters of women’s rights, equality and autonomy and access to comprehensive health care, including reproductive health care services.”

The banners display messages like “Reproductive Rights are Human Rights,” “Her Decision, Her Health,” and “U.S. Out of My Uterus,” and include related banners from the Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights, SisterSong/Trust Black Women, Catholics for Choice, NARAL-ProChoice California, and Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific. More photos of the banners in place around San Francisco are online, and more coverage is provided at Our Silver Blog.

Look for more activity later this month – during Trust Women Week, January 20-27, a virtual march will be held with MoveOn to express support for reproductive health, rights, and justice, and to send pro-choice messages to Washington.”

Will organizers lie about attendance by simply adding 5000 people to the previous year’s estimate as is their custom? We’ll just have to wait and see. Somebody will document the crowd overestimating, but I don’t know if it will be me this year…

Click to expand

All the deets:

“Due to a scheduling conflict, the Walk for Life will be unable to follow its familiar route from Justin Herman Plaza and along San Francisco’s waterfront to Marina Green. Instead, we will be gathering at Civic Center Plaza at 11:00 am for the Info Fair to be followed by the rally at 12:30 pm. At 1:30 we will start walking down Market Street to Justin Herman Plaza. There will be no additional events at Justin Herman Plaza.

We are excited about this new opportunity and believe that this new venue will give us the chance to grow our numbers. More information to come so please sign up for our email blasts to keep informed of these important changes.

HOTEL UPDATE: We have sold out of the rooms at the San Francisco Marriott Fisherman’s Wharf Hotel. We were able to negotiate a discounted rate at the Kabuki Hotel in Japantown (very close to the Cathedral) for $139/night. For further options, gohere.

FLYERS: Color flyers are now availble for download. If you would like to receive copies of the flyers, please send us an email with your address and how many you would like. Help spread the word!

“PAULSON, FALK TO CO-CHAIR YES ON PROPOSITION C PENSION REFORM CAMPAIGN – Top Labor Leader, Top Business Leader Tapped To Lead Consensus Coalition

SAN FRANCISCO, August 31, 2011 – San Franciscans United For Pension And Health Reform today selected Tim Paulson and Steve Falk to serve as co-chairs of the campaign supporting Proposition C and opposing Proposition D on the November ballot.

Paulson is executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, comprised of 150 local unions and representing 100,000 workers, and Falk is president and CEO of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, a 1,500-member organization representing the business community.

“We are pleased that San Francisco’s top labor leader and top business leader are working together to lead this coalition’s campaign for pension and health reform,” said Thomas P. O’Connor, president of Fire Fighters Local 798. “Unions and the business community don’t agree on everything, but on Proposition C, San Francisco is united.”

Falk praised Proposition C, which was developed with input from the community, introduced by Mayor Ed Lee, and passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisors.

“Proposition C saves taxpayers at least $1.3 billion over the next decade,” said Falk. “This measure is fiscally responsible and it will help keep us solvent.”

Paulson emphasized the measure’s fairness.

“Proposition C provides a safety net for hardworking city employees who earn lower wages,” said Paulson. “It keeps pension contributions stable for those making less than $50,000 a year. Those who make more pay more.”

“Proposition C has widespread support because it was conceived in the light of day, with a public process that encouraged input and ideas from everyone,” said O’Connor. “On the other hand, the backers of Proposition D bought their way onto the ballot with signature gatherers who were paid five dollars a signature and repeatedly got caught on tape lying about what the measure would do.”

Today, San Franciscans United For Pension And Health Reform also announced the other members of its campaign committee. In addition to Paulson, Falk, and O’Connor, the committee includes other business and labor leaders, along with the measure’s sponsor at the Board of Supervisors:

Warren Hellman, Civic Leader Gary Delagnes, President of the San Francisco Police Officers Association Sean Elsbernd, Member of the Board of Supervisors Steve Fields, Co-Chair of the Human Services Network Larry Mazzola, Business Manager and Financial Secretary Treasurer of UA Local 38 Rebecca Rhine, Executive Director of the Municipal Executives Association Bob Muscat, Executive Director of IFTPE Local 21 Sean Connolly, President of the Municipal Attorneys Association

Maybe someday the liars over at Walk For Life West Coast will explain how a march that was only two-thirds the length of last year’s (48 minutes (or so) long in 2010 and 31 minutes long in 2011*) could have 5000 more people.

It’s a miracle!?

It’s worth noting that nobody had a crowd estimate of less than 22K last year and nobody independent from the movement has a an estimate north of 20k this year. I put it at 16k and KGO 7 ABC TV is saying “about 20,000.” The organizers, under enormous pressure to claim ever growing attendance, claim 40,000+. Oh well.

Anyway, here are a few shots from this afternoon, starting with the counters.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were on hand. I’d say 5000 souls saw this sister and a fellow sister today – they were the focus of the march, particularly on the right side of the river of people going by. Here’s your welcome to San Francisco:

The mise-en-scene:

Tax Church Property and INVESTMENTS! Sure, sounds good to me.

And here’s Frank Chu, in the middle, going on about the Galaxies, as per usual:

And here’s the main body, 16k or so marchers from all over California and beyond:

*We’re talking about at the start here, people. Ferry Plaza was a ghost town by 12:33 PM. If the same number of people showed up as last year, it would have taken until about 12:50 PM for everybody to get going. Obviously, the march will spread out over time and narrow due to the way the course is set up.

How about 16,000 for an estimate of those marching up Embarcadero from the Ferry Building / Justin Herman Plaza area? So, that would be less than half of the officially estimated and very optimistic 35,000 count from last year, or, comparing apples to apples, about two-thirds of last year’s attendance, which was in the 22k, 23k, 24k neighborhood.

Will organizers tell the truth and say that their numbers are down year-over-year or will they simply lie? [UPDATE – KGO 7 ABC TV is saying about 20,000 and as for what the organizers are saying, see below]

As it looked at the start at around 12:02 PM, Saturday, January 22nd, 2011 CE. The much smaller counterprotesting pro-choice march went up Herb Caen Way in parallel – they were gone in 160 seconds or so.

Now, how could it be that a march that took three-quarters of an hour (more or less) to pass by Embarcadero and Broadway in 2010 is smaller than today’s, one that took a half-hour (more or less) to pass by Embarcadero and Broadway?

Saying that there were about 40,000 people marching today isn’t spin, it’s a sin. Appears as if organizer Dolores Meehan is a big fat liar. She might not be aware of the actual numbers precisely, but she’s got to know that the size of the crowd is waaaaaay down this year. What would she say next year if the parade only takes 15 minutes to get out of Ferry Plaza? She’d say 45,000, natch.

I mean, is that cool? Exaggerate more and more each year until nobody believes you? Is that how you roll?

“Record-breaking Turnout for Walk for Life West Coast in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Tens of thousands of pro-life activists filled Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco’s downtown and then walked 2.5 miles along the waterfront in a record-breaking turnout for the 7th Annual Walk for Life West Coast.

“We are here to break the bondage of the culture of death,” Walk for Life co-chair Dolores Meehan told the crowd that stretched as far as the eye could see.

“If we care for the baby, we have to care for the mother and father,” said speaker Kathleen Eaton, who funded Birth Choice Clinics in Orange County after her own abortion.

The Walk was held on the 38th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

“Today on January 22nd, I do not honor choice any more, I mourn choice,” said former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson, who walked away from her job at a Texas Planned Parenthood clinic on October 6, 2009, after assisting in an ultrasound-guided abortion of a 13-week-old fetus. “You are the new generation of the pro-life movement and I can tell you Planned Parenthood is shaking in their boots.”

“Nothing is too big for God to forgive,” said Mary Poirer, who told the story of her three abortions.

Rev. Brian Walker, who, with his wife Denise, chose to abort their child four months before their wedding, said he deserted his wife when she needed him. “Many years ago there was not a man in the house, there was a male in the house, but there was not a man in the house,” said Walker. “Everybody suffers in the wake of abortion.”

“We’ve lost close to 40 percent of our population to abortion,” said Rev. Denise Walker, founder of Everlasting Light Ministries, referring to the high rate of African American abortions. “We must end this slaughter.”

A densely packed crowd of least 40,000 walked 20 across in a line that stretched over a mile. The Walk route started at Justin Herman Plaza in downtown San Francisco and concluded at Marina Green in sight of Golden Gate Bridge.

Founded in 2005 by a group of San Francisco Bay Area residents, the Walk for Life West Coast’s mission is to change the perceptions of a society that thinks abortion is the answer.

Massive mobilization of hundreds of volunteers against Proposition B, which will double the cost of children’s health care. Throughout the day, volunteers will be tabling in neighborhoods with “pill bottle” giveaways to symbolize that Prop B is “bad medicine.” Other volunteers will spread out around the city and knock on doors to educate voters about the bad effects of Prop B.”

How do you get a strong-willed (and is there any other kind?) billionaire to change his or her mind?

No matter, San Francisco’s #1 banjo playerwants out of the pro-Proposition B campaign. Get all the deets, plus reaction from San Francisco Labor Council President Tim Paulson, below.

(This is seismic, baby.)

(This is unprecedented, baby.)

Click to expand. His head’s not really blue – it’s just the way the lighting was.

(Hello, MSM, are you there? It’s me, Margaret. Can we get a little follow-up, please? Show us what you can do with this one. Starting…now!)

Statement from F. Warren Hellman:

“I’m leaving the Yes on Proposition B campaign for the same reason I got involved in the campaign in the first place – we need a meaningful dialogue in San Francisco between business and labor to solve long-term problems threatening the city’s future without name-calling and fingerpointing.

“We must address the issue of spiraling public pension and health benefits costs. They’re like an iceberg floating beneath the surface that threatens to sink cities like ours. At the same time, I’m not willing scapegoat police officers, firefighters and other public workers to do it.

“We got into this situation together and we must work together to solve it in the interest of a city we all love.

“I was reminded of this spirit at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival this past weekend. We pulled off a massive free concert in Golden Gate Park without one major injury, disruption or arrest, which is a testament to the professionalism of San Francisco’s public workers and our City’s spirit of cooperation.

“I believe that organized labor appreciates that it is in San Francisco’s interest – and the interest of its members — to head off a looming pension and benefits crisis before it cripples public services and leaves police officers, firefighters and other public workers without retirement security.

“And I also believe that San Francisco business must understand its responsibility to pay its fair share to fund quality public services. And that begins with workers who are properly trained, fairly paid and able to retire with dignity.

“We have a history of working together in this city and settling issues without expensive and divisive political fights at the ballot box. I’m going to focus my attention and resources on restarting those discussions.”

Statement from Tim Paulson, San Francisco Labor Council

“On behalf of the Labor community, we are very pleased that Warren Hellman has withdrawn his support from the Yes on B campaign. Many of us in organized labor have worked closely with Mr. Hellman in recent years to rebuild San Francisco’s schools and fund public education and we were disappointed to be at odds on this measure.

“We share Mr. Hellman’s legitimate concerns about rising pension and health care costs and commit to work with him and other likeminded leaders in the business community to address them. We want to find sustainable and affordable ways to attract and retain the best public employees, compensate them fairly and allow them to retire with dignity. In short, we acknowledge and respect Mr. Hellman’s goals, even if Prop B is not the vehicle to achieve them.”